What's the ugliest
Part of your body?
What's the ugliest
Part of your body?
Some say your nose
Some say your toes
(I think it's your mind)
But I think it's YOUR MIND
(Your mind)
I think it's your mind, woo woo
- Frank Zappa
Allison Pearson - far less pleasant than she looks
After last night’s bomb attack outside the Manchester Arena, even the most combative politicians are taking a step back, urging calm, seeking to bring different faiths and cultures together, stressing what unites us all. Even those who scrabble around the dunghill that is Grubstreet - well, most of them - are taking time to stop and think. But out there on the right, there is always that nasty itch of hatred that someone has to scratch.
And no-one scratches the itch of hatred and intolerance more readily that Allison Pearson, who has inexplicably been retained to do alleged journalism by the increasingly downmarket and desperate Telegraph. Ms Pearson needs no prompting to go off the end of the nearest pier, and the Manchester attack was no exception.
At first, her response was perfectly rational: “Oh, God. Confirmed fatalities at Manchester Arena”. This state was not to last, though. Because this was all about Scary Muslims (tm) and so the red mist swiftly descended. “We need a State of Emergency as France has. We need internment of thousands of terror suspects now to protect our children”.
Internment camps. What kind of camps might those be, the kind where those interned are concentrated together? Did it not occur to her that this is exactly the sort of response that whoever perpetrated the attack was looking to provoke? No, fingers in ears, la la la, she wasn’t listening. She was right and anyone saying otherwise, er, wasn’t.
“If we don't do something we are just waiting for another attack and another”. It was then pointed out to her that we had an example of why this kind of thing does not work - internment was once of the least successful tactics used during the Northern Irish “troubles”. She still wasn’t listening. “What do we do? Wait for another massacre?”
What if the newsroom sinks? What if he’s got a pointed stick? Did Ms Pearson think the security forces sat around and did nothing all day? James Jones summed up the response to what was nothing more than unnecessary background noise: “Just in case you needed further reminding that the Telegraph shouldn't be taken seriously”.
Quite so. In days gone by, Allison Pearson - and she isn’t the only one - would not have got in the door at the Telegraph. Now the paper will let in any old froth and rant merchant. Right now the ugliness of Ms Pearson’s mind is the last thing we need.
5 comments:
And why shouldn't we have concentration camps?
They were invented in the American Civil War when both sides used them. The British continued the practice in the Boer War and in the withdrawal from Empire during the second half of the last century.
So they would be a logical conclusion.
Just as Donald Trump is a logical choice in the USA system. And so was the torture chamber at Guantanamo.
It's where we go when there's nothing left but hate. Which is the only thing peddled to readers of the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and the Sun.
Which is why Manchester is not the first and won't be the last atrocity of this kind.
The historical record speaks for itself. People like Pearson never learn. That's why this horror will be repeated and will go on until someone in power has the courage to face up to reality and responsibility.
But I wouldn't make book on it.
People look at me oddly when I claim that The Telegraph is just on large red-top these days. But it is. I've never seen a respected newspaper commit suicide before. But we're seeing one now.
You haven't been watching The Scotsman then?
According to Wikipedia (I know, I know), the circulation figures for January 2017 are:
The Sun - 1,666,715.
Daily Mail - 1,511,357.
Daily Telegraph - 472,258.
That is a frightening figure for a population of 65.5 million.
How did we come to have so many dumbed-down morons?
Pearson (who looks nothing like her ridiculously air-brushed picture byline) is the kind of vicious extremist that real journalists once exposed. The fact that low life like her and Katie Hopkins are now star columnists says everything.
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